Baseball’s Executive of the Year? Not Good Enough

The Toronto Blue Jays came within an inning of forcing a Game 7 in the American League Championship Series, where they would’ve played a winner-take-all game against a team that’s currently up 2-0 in the World Series. Not bad for a team that for the last two decades has been a perpetual afterthought behind the Yankees, Red Sox, even the Rays—right? That the franchise is in a perceived state of turmoil less than a week after that game is classic sports, where results often seem secondary to whoever’s able to claim credit.

On Thursday, it was announced that general manager Alex Anthopoulos, whose stewardship helped turn the Blue Jays into that contender, wouldn’t be rejoining the team next year. The official narrative was that he’d turned down a contract extension, but as Anthopoulos spoke frankly about the team no longer being “the right fit for me,” the real story emerged: Anthopoulos was essentially being asked to take a demotion to general manager-in-name-only, with new team president Mark Shapiro (formerly of the Cleveland Indians) calling the final shots. Anthopoulos wasn’t a perfect general manager; you can point to decisions of his that plainly didn’t work out, like trading for R.A. Dickey by giving up prospects Travis d’Arnaud and Noah Syndergaard, both of whom are currently tearing it up and earning endearing nicknames for the New York Mets. But he traded for prospective AL MVP Josh Donaldson, got Troy Tulowitzki for nothing from the Colorado Rockies, made savvy deadline moves like getting staff ace David Price on the roster. They were aggressive moves, often made at the cost of Toronto’s farm system, but they were moves that worked. The Blue Jays became a powerhouse, and had that ALCS run to show for it. “Seriously: would you rather have Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris in your farm system, or have experienced the heartbreaking lunacy of the last three months?” writes the National Post’s Scott Stinson. “If you are a Blue Jays fan and would choose the former, you must be the rare breed who prefers roster assembly to, you know, games.”